Below is a transcript of our conversation with CMU Professor Emerita Joyce Baugh:
David Nicholas:
I'm David Nicholas and this is Central Focus, a weekly look at research activity and innovative work from Central Michigan University students and faculty. Fifty (50) years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down their ruling in Milliken V Bradley, the case of desegregation busing in the Detroit Public Schools. Professor Emerita Joyce Baugh from CMU’s School of Politics, Society, Justice and Public Service joined me to talk about her book on the case and issues that extended well beyond the classrooms of the late 60s and early 70s. Professor Baugh, in part one of our conversation, picks up the story with the proposed desegregation plan from 1970.
Joyce Baugh:
It involved only 11 of the 22 high schools, right? And it was going to be a two-way program and that's one of the things, one of the attorneys in the case talked about it. That was also groundbreaking, was having two way because in most of the cases before that what you had was black students being sent to white schools, not the reverse. It was going to be a two way (The) They limited it to high schools. They did not include elementary or junior high. What we find out is the legislature overturns that plan. Governor Milliken signs the overturning of that plan. And then the case gets filed. They always refer to it as the April 7th plan because that was the date that they approve (it). And that was April 7th of 1970.
DN:
Would you say it was typical for a case that significant events or developments (that) changed the focus or altered in any way some of the arguments as they were being presented as it was working its way to eventually a decision in 1974?
JB:
What they tried to point out is that school segregation was extremely connected to housing segregation. And the housing segregation did not happen by accident. The housing segregation was the result of restrictive covenants, and the federal governments redlining, which then became the redlining, was practiced then by banks and real estate agencies, and staring and blockbusting. All of these things happening and this was not something that, you know, was just people decide to live where they want to live, no. And then what they were showing was every time the population shifted, the composition of the schools shifted so that blacks then were as they as the plaintiffs’ attorneys referred to it. They were always contained. In a certain region right in the in the city, and…
DN:
Well, that word alone contained.
JB:
Yeah, they were contained. They (they) talked about the containment pattern. And they did this like, I think over 3 or 4 decades from 1940 to 1970, they did it each decade. And so, then when the case gets to the Supreme Court, and by this time you've (you've) got the suburban school districts have been permitted to join the case as interveners. And so, William Saxton, who is the attorney for the suburbs, is allowed to provide oral argument at the Supreme Court. He in tandem works with Attorney General Frank Kelly. And they argue that the suburban districts didn't have anything to do with desegregation of Detroit Public Schools. We didn't do anything, so we can't be part of the remedy. And the Supreme Court Chief Justice Berger, writes the opinion. He accepts that reasoning, and it was so disingenuous. (This) the suburban districts didn't have to do anything. Because of housing segregation they didn't have many black kids anyway. So, they didn't have to make any policies.
DN:
Two things that are linked so closely allow(s) another chunk of this whole thing to just walk away.
JB:
Right. Chief Justice Berger basically says, well, you know, the District Court. I'm sorry the (the) 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, they didn't deal with the housing aspect. So, we don't need to deal with that. And you know, I talked to legal (legal) scholars and they say the Supreme Court, they can decide what they want to hear and how much they want to put weight on certain things, even if the lower court hasn't fully grappled with it.
